05 January 2008

More and more people are coming to realise that Global warming is a serious issue and not something to be taken lightly. I myself have done some mild research into the topic, but not enough to really warrant me lecturing you about it. However I did come across a fantastic video made by a science teacher (with a whole heap of add on videos with extra info called “The expansion pack”) which makes some excellent points. Therefore I thought I’d leave it to him to lecture you on the problems of global warming!

The video is entitled "How It All Ends" and while a bit slow to begin with its initial explanation of risk management, it then quickly develops and the science teacher who created it makes some very good and very persuasive points. While I haven’t watched many of the follow up videos they are there for all of those who might be interested in learning even more, I will no doubt watch them at a later date when I have enough time. So I strongly recommend that you all go watch "How It All Ends", right now! Even though it’s ten 10 minutes long, it’s a damn worthwhile ten minutes. After all nothing is more important than our environment and our place within it. We are after all dependent upon our environments wellbeing for our own health.

The video is very rational, concise and even humourous. It is probably one of the best brief explanations of why we need to take action that I’ve seen. The effort that has gone into the making of these videos must have been huge. Therefore I feel compelled to spread this video around to as many people as I can. The thing about global warming is that it is obviously a global problem. Hence, it doesn’t truly require great action from any individual but rather small changes from all individuals.

At SydneyUniversity I am doing a course called “Global Studies”, and one of the first things we did at the beginning of our course was a global warming scenario where we played different countries. To cut a long story short I was Japan, the country with the second most ability to reduce carbon emissions (after the US), yet despite devoting all of my resources every turn to reducing global warming we did not stop the foreseen climate destabilisation. Why was this? It was because many smaller countries (in our hypothetical game this is, not real life) did not make the effort to change. They argued that they were small and couldn’t do much to stop global warming and therefore didn’t try simply because they did not have the same resources to devote as larger countries did.

Yet a global problem requires global action, that is to say that every one of us, no matter how insignificant we may seem in the grander picture still play a role. Indeed the scientist who created “How it all ends” even states himself:

“But what do I do I’m just one guy, with a stupid hat?

What you do is spread the word because the only way we really get into column A [that is to say taking action on climate change] is by policy changes and those only happen when enough people demand it. So we need nothing less than a change in the culture itself and you can help make that happen…”

So as you can see individuals do create change, its always been how it is, its just that they typically get nothing for their efforts. Well in this case we don’t get something, but at least we avoid disaster. And for those of you who are now feeling depressed at the whole difficulty of the situation fear not for as is stated in "How It All Ends":

“There’s a lot of reason to believe we can fix this, maybe even without reducing our standard of living, if were quick about it”

So chop chop, hop to it, go watch "How It All Ends", see for yourself what you think. If you find yourself generally agreeing with him then make sure you spread the video to all of your friends, family, co-workers and so on. At very least we will begin to get people educated on the severity of the problem faced. We little individuals can create change. Feel empowered by that fact. Start by watching the video and then take it from there. In the future I may well also post some more stuff on global warming and what we can do to play our part, but until then, watch the damned video!

No comments:

About Me

Medical student, who is constantly forgetting all the many abstracts and science articles he's read eons ago, and as such thought he'd compile a blog of interesting recent scientific developments and hash-tag them so he can go back and quickly re-find information. He finds all of this stuff very interesting, maybe you will too?